The Wisdom of God in a Mystery

Went a long ways back there. Our church is so small and everybody's right here. Thank you so much for your invitation to come. What an honor it is and I have not done this very many times as far as going somewhere. I always felt like I should stay at home and take care of the business of our church at home. I teach Bible class all the time and fill in for the preacher some. I went somewhere else two times, but it's been a long time ago.

So this is kind of a new experience for me in a sense, and even though I'm 74 years old, Yeah, you still have them feelings of, this is new. But I hope that the message today that the Lord will set me aside and put the words in my mouth that you need to hear and to feed you this morning.

As my son knows that I have been pretty consumed with this word of the gospel being a mystery. And it just amazes me how that this mystery really protects the gospel. And it's only known by those who truly know the Lord. And it's kept, this mystery, it's a mystery to those who do not know the Lord.

So let's open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter two. 1 Corinthians chapter two. We're gonna start reading in verse six. It says, how be it we speak the wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, not the princess of this world that come to naught, but we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery.

Even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world and to our glory, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. Now when we talk about it being a mystery, the dictionary says, any assumed truth that cannot be comprehended by the human mind. So therefore the gospel is something that man cannot intellectually figure it out. It's a mystery, there's many things that God has about God that he's hidden from the world, from those who are not his elect.

The fact that he elected a people is very basic to the gospel. And he says here in verse six, howbeit we speak the wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, not what the world thinks gospel is, not what the world thinks God is.

They don't think God is as important as, they look at him and they don't see him as he is. He's just much more than what they see. In a man's mind, if he doesn't know the Lord, God is a whole lot like himself. They can deal with him, they can change his mind, they can change his course and all that sort of thing. And that's the way the world looks upon him.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. Because a believer knows this mystery. If he knows the Lord, he knows what the Lord has hidden from those who don't know him. It says, the hidden wisdom of God, which God ordained before the world and to our glory. the fact of his salvation, how he has saved sinners.

He ordained that this would be a ministry before the foundation of the world. And says, which none of the princes of this world knew, for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. He did this so that the fact that our Lord would be crucified. He hid it from those who did not know him, that were the leaders of the world at that time, that hated God, hated Christ, and made it so that that hate was so great, they didn't see him as he was, they didn't see him as a savior, they didn't see him as a God.

And so therefore, they were angry, they were mad, they were mean to him, they were gonna crucify him. This had to be. We needed a sacrifice. We needed a Savior. We needed someone to die for our sins, and God made it so because the world did not really know who they were crucifying. And so this was ordained that the world would not hear it, and it was a mystery to them.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Verses three to six. Second Corinthians, I'm in first Corinthians yet, I'm sorry. Second Corinthians four. Verse three, verse three to six, it says, But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. And so he's saying here, our gospel be hid, it's hid to them who are lost. And there's no way that they can figure this mystery out. He's made it so. He's made it that way. And Paul talks about this mystery, and he says that natural man cannot know this. It can't be learned by intellect. He can't figure it out. And so the gospel is hid in a mystery. You know, man has to see and touch things, and they can only see things that is done.

So they look at their works, their good deeds, they look at their baptisms and that sort of thing. These are things they see, and they consider that a contribution unto salvation. And therefore, God will look upon it as in favor of them. But you see, that's not, that God does not accept their good deeds and their religious things.

And so he says here, our gospel is hid, it is hid to them who are lost. And so man has to see and touch everything he believes, things, but things of God are spiritual. It's, we see through faith, and so a natural man cannot see these sort of things. It's like Matt says, this message is kind of on the sad side in a sense, but bear with me. We're gonna get to where we find peace in these things.

But man thinks if he does good things and religious things, God will look kindly upon them. But you see, lost man is under the law and he has to follow everything. He has to obey that law perfectly or God will not accept his work at all. And so natural man can't do it.

We have the flesh. We deal with the flesh. The flesh leads us into things that we enjoy and do and therefore Most of the time, it leads us into sin. And so God will not accept these things. But if they're going to live that way, if they're going to look at things and look at baptism and all these things that they can see, they have to do these things perfectly. Man can't do it. It's still a mystery to him. He's not seeing God in truth. So he sees what he can figure out in his mind, and God says, you can't figure it out. It's revealed to you.

But you see, everything we do, we think we're doing good deeds, we're good neighbors. But you go help a neighbor, and let's say you help him and he's, it's a time that's not suitable to you. And you're going and helping him, and it's a good deed, and all the neighbors around seeing you're going and helping out a neighbor.

But what's going on in your mind? What's going on in your heart? I wish I was home. This is not a good time. I need to be doing this. I need to be doing that. And therefore, your good deed is tainted with sin. It's not pure generosity. And so therefore, everything man does is tainted with sin. But you see, God does not accept these things. He does not see the needs of a Savior. The lost man does not. He doesn't see his depravity, his sin. He doesn't see the fact that he cannot do anything to please God. And this is a mystery to man. We witness to many people and they cannot see our Savior that we're telling them about.

Paul said that he was graced with the preaching of the gospel. And Paul says it's a great responsibility. And it is because we're talking about salvation. We're not just talking about something going on daily. This is so important. I guess really there is not a greater thing or greater message that any man or anyone can do except telling about Christ, telling about salvation.

We all, we believers, and just like Paul had that responsibility, we also have that as believers. We're responsible for spreading the gospel. It's a great responsibility. We have something that Most people in the world don't have. We're not haughty about it because we know our condition. But our purpose here is to spread the gospel. And it is a great responsibility because it needs to be done and we have to tell the truth. The gospel has to be told in truth. That's where it's so important. That's where we have something that the world doesn't have.

And you see, God saves through preaching. How would a person know who to believe in if we don't tell them about our Savior? How are they going to know who to believe? Who are they going to follow? They know the preaching of the world. They know how the worldly churches preach the gospel.

It has to do with works, good religion, all that sort of thing, going to church, doing good deeds. But we just established that that is not something that God would accept. And so it is such a great responsibility for us to preach the gospel and something that is what we're here to do. The Holy Spirit gives us understanding of this truth. This is another mystery that the world does not understand. Lost man can understand that.

If you haven't experienced it, you will not be able to understand how the Holy Spirit can speak in your heart, can enter your heart. His spirit enters in with your spirit, and the two combine, and he lives within you and works within you. How does that happen? How in the world can that be? People in the world can understand that. Oh, they talk about it. But you just can't quite understand it. It's a mystery. It is something that only believers really come to know.

We plant the seed and God gives the increase. So when we're witnessing people, we plant a seed. We tell something about Christ. We talk about his sovereignty. We talk about his promises and how that he cares for you and walks with you every day and leads you and guides you and gives you peace and gives you rest. We plant this seed.

And if it's a believer that you're talking to, God will give the increase. A mystery. How's he do that? How's he give that increase? just by you telling them something about Christ, and he gives the increase. He causes that to become real to a believer. And so, therefore, that's what we're here to do, is to spread this message. The Spirit uses us to believe who believes the gospel.

We clearly see this mystery. If you're a believer, You see this, mister. You see Christ. You see all these things that just don't fit together in the Word. You read the Word and sometimes, if you can remember when you were not a believer and you read the Word and you think, this just isn't right. This don't fit together. But then when you come to be a believer, it all fits together. It's all about Christ. It's all about Him. It's not about do's and don'ts. Things we should and shouldn't do. It's about Him. That's what we're here to talk about. He's our Savior.

The Spirit reveals His truth only to God's elect. And that's why when we plant the seed, God gives the increase to His elect, to His children. And these elect are chosen for the foundation of the world. What a mystery. Chosen before the foundation of the world, it had not even been spoken into being.

And God knows you. And has chosen you. Before the world was spoken into being, you were saved. You were in His hands. So everything that was said into being, when He spoke the world into being, was going to contribute to your salvation during a certain length of time. So he chose us for the foundation of the world.

It's a mystery to the world, but we understand it. Believers understand it and believers see it and clearly understand how this happened. How do we do that? Because he's revealed it to us through the Holy Spirit. He's given us faith to believe. I've read the meaning of a mystery. It says, any assumed truth that cannot be comprehended by the human mind. We see Christ and all these mysteries very clearly through faith. We believe them to be true without a doubt. You can't touch it. See it, you can't hear it, but we know it to be true, without a doubt. That's what we receive when God reveals himself unto us through the Holy Spirit.

It says, election is not understood by natural man. He will not let go of his free will or his control. It is very important to man before he comes to the Lord. This free will, this control, this is what he has. And he has to have it, and he will not let go of it. Not as long as he does not know the Lord. He will not let go of that. He's full of pride and arrogance, and he's gonna do what he's gonna do. Predestination is not complete according to natural man.

We believe, we know that when God predestinated all things, everything was set out to the most minute detail in time. Everything. I was talking earlier, we may get up in the morning and put on our pants and put on our shirt You ladies may not do that. But we get dressed and we think, well, we chose those things, but God established our mind. He establishes our walk, where we're going that day, what we're going to be doing. Everything down to the most minute detail is predestined. It has to be because there cannot be anything in time that will interfere with your salvation.

And people say, well, I can pray and I can change things. No, your heart may get changed and be put in tune with him, but the activities and the things that go on in this world cannot be changed in the most minute detail. Because what if Bob prays and decides that I want this done this day, but that interferes with where my destination is.

You see, that can't happen. It has to be down to the most minute detail. Natural man thinks he must add to God's work, and he can't do it. Everything we do is tainted with sin, and therefore God won't accept it, and it changes things. He just can't do it. Natural man can't.

It has to be all strictly in God's control. Limited atonement. That's a mystery. Isn't that a mystery? That God only saves certain people? Are you saying that God only saves certain people? Yes, that's what I'm saying. But that's refused by natural man. He can't see it and he can't understand it.

But you know, we rest in that. We find comfort in that. But Christ died for the elect and for them only, and we're one of them. And we find rest and peace in that. Everything is for us. And so, limited atonement is refused by natural man. He thinks that Jesus died for everyone.

John 3.16 is a good example. It says that whosoever in that word, the word whosoever in that verse, we all know the verse, whosoever in that verse is a very, very important word. Because that whosoever is the elect. That's who's gonna love Christ. That's who's gonna follow Christ. Whosoever is the important word.

And then if you read the verses before and after, you realize that what the world's saying about John 3, 16 is not so. But he says here that also they talk about limited atonement and then they say, well, invite Christ into your heart. You invite Christ into your heart, into your black, cold heart. Christ is going to come into your heart. You invite him.

You think he's going to come into your cold heart that he has not prepared. He has not taken out the stony heart and put in the heart of flesh. The heart that he has not prepared he's going to come into? No way. Christ would not enter there. But man says, invite him into your heart. You see, it's the work of man inviting him. But as my son always says, everything comes down to us. It doesn't go up. Christ does the work in us. He reveals himself to us. come to him. We won't come to him. And the word says we can't come to him. We don't have the ability.

And so that in itself is a mystery. You see, that's why I'm so caught up in this word mystery because it is, it just seems to, it applies to everything that has to do with the gospel. Believers know But God's work is complete, and it's effectual, and we can't add anything to it.

But man does not believe God. He cannot see that. He wants to add something to it. He wants to put something he can touch and he can feel to make it look like he's a believer. But we know that we can't add anything to God's work. We can't change it. We don't want to change it. We see him as he is, and so we don't want to change it.

This mystery of revelation is amazing work of the Holy Spirit. That's revelation. Like I said, man can't know it unless you've experienced it. You don't understand it. You just don't understand it. God's Spirit works with our spirit, and it leads and it guides us.

And there's no steps to this revelation. There's no one to ten steps to come to God or to know this revelation. There's none there. We can't tell you how to do this, how to receive this revelation, how to see God as He truly is. We can't tell you that.

That's the work of the Spirit. Like I said, we plant the seed, we tell about Christ, He gives the increase. If He decides to reveal Himself unto you, then you will see Him as He is. This mystery will no longer be a mystery. You'll see Him as He is. And when you see the truth of the Gospel, you know it, and the Word becomes alive to you.

I mean, these pages just jump with Christ. It's all about Christ. His promises, His salvation, His truths, His care, His protection, everything comes alive. It all fits together. And it makes your heart jump to hear it. It is just beyond imagination. And the thing of it is, if you're His, it's all about you. It's for His glory. but you're receiving salvation, you will be able to spend eternity with him. Never before have you ever seen this gospel this way.

Lost man cannot see nor accept his fall in Adam as being complete. When we died in Adam, we were dead. We could not see, we could not hear, we could not walk, and so lost man says, invite Christ into your heart? He can't do it, he's dead. And there's no way that a lost man could ever come to Christ unless Christ draws him. And so they cannot see this as not having the ability to come here.

A believer sees his depravity and his need for a sacrifice. When we come to know the Lord, we see our inabilities. We see our sin. We see that we have sinned directly against God. And therefore we see that we have nothing in and of ourselves to contribute to God, nothing. And so we rest and we're excited about election, about predestination, about all these things that are about our Lord. We're happy and we're proud and happy to see this.

And the thing of it is, someone has to die. God said they sinned against him, somebody has to die. But that sacrifice has to be a perfect sacrifice. It cannot be one that is tainted in any way, shape, or form. So man cannot do this. Man can't die for his sins in and of himself. He can't pay for them in any way in and of himself. And so someone has to die.

And the thing of it is, The mystery, when Christ was crucified, that's why it was the gospels of mystery to those who crucified him. They didn't see who he was. But Christ had to die. And it was in his, in God's plan, he predestinated that would happen. God had, Christ had to die for our sins. And so the people who did this, All the leaders and all, that was, the gospel was a mystery. Christ was a mystery to them. And so that made it so that they crucified Christ for us. That mystery, that hidden truth that the world cannot see. But we needed Christ to be our super, our, to sigh for our sins. You see, all our good deeds are filthy rags. They're filled with flesh and sin, and you cannot stand on judgment day on your own. You need Christ. You absolutely need Christ. A believer is perfect before God right now. Did you know you're perfect before God right now? Sure don't feel like it, does it? The thoughts we have, the things we do, how can we be perfect right now? But we are. We struggle with our flesh all the time. And the spirit, it's a struggle back and forth.

But Christ before the world was spoken of being predestinated salvation for all the elect. It was so sure as if it was already done. You were his when God elected you. We didn't know it. We were born in sin, but if you look at your life and the path that he'd taken you through to get to salvation, he was in control of you all the time. He elected you before the foundation of the world, and Christ died for your sins, and it was as if it was already done.

And when we stand before God, we stand before Him, we have to be as perfect as He is. Exactly like Him. Can you imagine? Can you imagine being exactly like Christ? But that's the way it is. That's the only way we can stand before Him because He cannot look upon sin.

Through faith that we are given, we know that this is true. He's given us faith to know these things. He revealed himself to you in the fullness of time. There was a time when it was time for you to, for him to reveal Christ unto you. Every one of us have a day that that's the way it is. We have an appointed day that we're gonna die, but we had appointed day also that we come to know him.

And so, it's called the fullness of time, but the work of salvation was settled before the world began. Think about that, how long ago that was. The world wasn't even here. He spoke the world into being. He told the elements to come together. He made the light. He made all these things. before the foundation of the world. And here's measly little us, not to be offensive, but measly little us in the world. And he did this for us before the world began.

That is just absolutely amazing. It is to me, I just can't imagine. And this is a God that spoke things into being. Your salvation is sure. If he can speak things into being, and he has elected you, and saved you, and paid the price for your sins in all his plans. Boy, if that don't give you peace, I don't know what will. It is absolutely amazing.

But he revealed himself to us, and as apostles dropped our fishing nets and followed Christ, we did the same. When he come and when he revealed himself to us, we no longer followed religion. We let go of pride as much as the flesh will let us. But we didn't follow those old religious ways. Our desire was to live like him. We wanted to be like Christ.

Salvation is a narrow way, very narrow way. It's not the Methodist way, the Lutheran way, and you just go ahead and name them all. It's not all these different ways. It's only through Christ. Christ only. Through his salvation. Through the things that he, the salvation that he provided for you. That is the only way.

That's why when we come to worship, we want to hear about Christ. It seems like whenever we have burdens and problems in our minds and we come to worship and we hear Christ, doesn't it make things go away? Doesn't it settle your heart and give you peace to hear about Christ who does everything for you and is only for you?

It's a narrow way. Some people say, come up and get an invitation. Well, they walk in front of the church to do that. See, they can see that. They can see that. They can see it and touch it. And some of them think, well, it's baptism. But you see, there's no works of worldly religion that we can do to cause God to look upon us. And so We only look toward Christ. We desire to be like him and we long to be in his presence. Paul says in Ephesians, he humbly was given to preach the gospel. We're given the truth of the gospel and learn the mystery of the gospel. We know that. And it's a great responsibility for us also. It's very important. It's what a blessing it is to come to know the Lord. Like I said, it's not everybody going to get that blessing. Not everybody comes to know the Lord. You know the Lord.

It is a wonderful, wonderful thing. We want others to learn of this great salvation. You know, it excites you to think about it. the fact that you know the gospel, you know the truth, and only the truth will set you free. It's a great responsibility, and we want others to know this wonderful thing, this wonderful Christ that we know about. We desire that so much. We want our families to know. We want our friends to know.

The fellowship gets so sweet when they come to know the gospel. We desire them to know true salvation. And we hurt for them that live under the modern day religion that tells us that's basically not the truth. We desire for them to know the truth of the gospel. We are responsible for this. We're responsible to tell the gospel.

And don't get discouraged. That's another thing too. We tell and we tell and we tell. And so many times we never hear or never see any results, but don't get discouraged. That's what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to tell the gospel. Many ask, what is the purpose on earth? We know we have the words of salvation. Bob mentioned that the other night. We don't have to worry about it. Many people want to know, what am I here for? What am I supposed to do? You know, am I supposed to contribute to this world? How do I do that?

We know. We know what we are here for. We're here to tell the gospel to all that we can. That's our purpose. We're ambassadors for Christ. And so we say, don't get discouraged. So this mystery that I was talking about, is not known to this world. And so, through this responsibility we have, we tell of Christ. We see through this mystery. We see Christ. And so, therefore, we're to tell all we can.

They may not hear. They may not understand. We didn't understand. We didn't see Christ. But remember, before we come to know the gospel, someone told us. Someone, we read it in the Word, maybe a scripture. Maybe somebody was visiting with us. Maybe we was in a church service, or a fellow worker. Somebody told us of Christ.

We didn't know the true God. We knew the God in our mind and our imagination. We knew what the world said about God, but oh my, God is sovereign. He's our Lord and our Savior. He is everything, above everything and beyond everything, and words can't describe completely who He is. Our words are so feeble to explain God.

But you know Him, and He looked upon you favorably, and He elected you for whatever reason we don't know. But he did, because you know the gospel. You have something that is so precious. Spread that word. Tell others about it. We're not supposed to be embracing the world, but we must be in the world in order to spread this word. So this mystery is something that we have, that we see through, and it's very precious because God revealed it to us. It's very precious. And that's all I have then. Thank you.

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The Wisdom of God in a Mystery

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